Barbara Lee, (b. July 16, 1946) is a United States Representative from California. She is a former staff member for Rep. Ron Dellums and was elected in 1998 as a Democrat to the 105th Congress in a special election to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Rep. Dellums. Lee subsequently has been reelected five times.

In the 1970s Lee was a confidential aide to Huey Newton, the "Minister of Defense" of the Black Panther Party. [1] Lee served on the national committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

On September 14 2001, three days after the 9/11 terror attacks, Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against the resolution (S.J.Res. 23) which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives 420-1 [2] authorizing the President to use force in response. [3] In an editorial after the vote, Rep. Lee said that she was "repulsed and angered by these attacks and believe all appropriate steps must be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice." but called the resolution "a blank check to the president" and accused Congress of failing "its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration"[4]